Orlando festival features first-string puppeteers

Sure, her father was Jim Henson, the creator of Kermit and Ernie and Rowlf. But what her dad did, Heather Henson says, was too hard for her to get a handle on -- too big, too expensive, too difficult for a young person to grasp.

But when she was 17 or so, her father took her along when he was making a TV series about different styles of puppetry around the world. To the teenage Heather, that was a revelation.

"We got to stay with the artists for a week, got to know the cast. It was eye-opening to see all those different styles."

That was the seed, it seems, of Heather Henson's own career as a puppeteer -- and the seed, in turn, of the Orlando Puppet Festival, which makes its third visit to downtown Orlando next week.

As the event's producer, Henson will present nine different puppet troupes from Orlando and across the country, including two that have won the internationally recognized UNIMA awards for excellence in puppetry. The festival also will feature the popular Puppets From the Edge, a new crop of boundary-breaking artists; an open-mike night for those who want to try out their craft; and an exhibit of the works of cutting-edge puppet filmmakers.

All of it takes place at Mad Cow Theatre, the neighboring Gallery at Avalon Island and outdoors at Orlando Heritage Square.

For this year's festival, Henson is focusing on what she calls "classic" performers -- puppeteers known for doing traditional puppetry really well. Her family makes grants to puppeteers who can be considered more innovative, she says. But Orlando has so little history with puppeteering that she thinks the festival needs to introduce local theatergoers to "pillars of the art form."

"The goal is to build a vocabulary," she says.

Central to the festival are two headlining groups: the Cashore Marionettes, based in Doylestown, Pa., and Sandglass Theater, based in Putney, Vt.

Joseph Cashore, Henson says, is one of the best-known classic marionettists in North America. He's recognized for the precision of his craftsmanship and for "sweet, sophisticated, beautiful vignettes."

"He's all about bringing excellence of craftsmanship and intriguing stories. He has this horse I just freaked out over. The ears fold back, the head moves, and it's so perfectly manipulated. You're telling a story in gesture and action, and every gesture has to be engineered into the puppet."

Sandglass Theater's co-artistic directors are Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass, who, Henson says, "really approach the art of puppetry as theater." They perform what is known as "tabletop puppetry," with the masked puppeteer part of the show. In Autumn Portraits, Eric Bass explores the relationship between five puppets and their manipulator, and in Isidor's Cheek, Ines Bass uses a revolving table filled with all the objects of the tiny puppet's world.

A series of other performances, the "Cupcake Kiddy Shows," is for children and families, with local puppeteers and admission only $3. "Puppets From the Edge" is what Henson calls "the avant-garde stuff," and "Potpourri of Puppetry" is the open-mike night, a mixed bag of puppeteers from the community.

"I'm very much into the idea that anyone can do this," Henson says. "Puppetry is such a community-based art, so a lot of this is building up the puppetry community."

Two other key parts of this year's festival are close to Henson's heart. One is an exhibit of puppets and set pieces used in her collection of short films about puppetry, Handmade Puppet Dreams. Along with the exhibit, puppet filmmaker Genevieve Anderson will present her film Too Loud a Solitude, and she'll participate in a talkback after the screening.

And Henson will present her own piece with Voci Dance, Panther and Crane, outdoors in front of the Orange County Regional History Center at Heritage Square. The collaborators also presented the piece in August in Huntington, N.Y.

Henson got the idea when she heard of scientists who were trying to teach whooping cranes, which had abandoned their migratory paths decades before, to take them up once again. Scientist-pilots used puppets and masks to disguise themselves as birds, Henson says, and to lead the birds back south.

She contrasts the success story of the cranes with that of the alligator, which has bounced back from endangerment, and the nearly extinct Florida panther.

"I love speaking in metaphors. I love working in images. And I love working with dancers when I can. I'm not a choreographer, but I do love the movement of objects. A lot of my stories are about how life flows."

She also often uses animation -- her course of study in college at the Rhode Island School of Design -- and people flying kites. It's not exactly Kermit: It's a language that is Heather Henson's own.

"It's not one language. I do this mixing of media.

"I think it's a really dynamic and exhilarating art form. Its vocabulary can be vast, and it can say so much. There's a lot to it, and I just want to share it."